*********** A reminder about civility ******************

[Nanohedron]

For what it's worth, "pub" has wormed its way into the Yank lexicon and out of exoticity by now, at least in some locales. I've overheard people use the term with some surprising regularity hereabouts, from well outside the ITM circle, and not in reference to Irish/Scottish/English-themed "bars-in-a-box" or the like.

Well, then. I say let's not call the Pub the Pub anymore. I vote for "The Shebeen".

You have English-themed pubs? Weird.

We even have one here called "The Britannia Arms"...has Union Jacks all over the place and a red call box out front! But I do have to give them credit...unlike a lot of such places, the Arms is very true to its roots. It reminds me a great deal of some of the pubs we visited in England. No cask-conditioned, cellar-cooled ale, alas (I really developed a taste for good ale in London!), but the atmosphere is very true to type.

Our token "Irish pub" on the other hand, is a travesty. It's basically a fern bar that serves Guinness. Kind of like a ""Slug and Lettuce" that serves corned beef and cabbage. Nice enough for a restaurant, I guess...I'm told the food is very good...but the only thing Irish about it is the name: Rosie McCann's.

Redwolf

...we have bar/restaurants that "pretend" they are English or Irish themed pubs. I got into an slight, ah, disagreement with the bartender at the "Fox and Hound" that is across the street from where I work. They have "Bud Light" happy hours. What the heck kind of pub would even serve Bud Light???

I won't even go into what the "Claddagh" pub calls "Irish" - one of their offerings is "Southern Irish Pulled Pork Sandwich"

That's what's to love about the U.S.: you can get it all. The packaging and delivery wax imaginative - from faithful to hodgepodge to in name only - and the eye-batters are the spoilsports. One local Irish-themed pub serves an haute cuisine boxty with a balsamic/vanilla reduction sauce drizzled over the top. It's so wrong, bless 'em. *shudder*

[Ronbo]

Pubs are a different matter altogether.

Sorry, you are way off the mark, there. Bars/taverns/saloons were never called public houses (pubs) in the States as far as I know. That is a fairly recent innovation, with bar owners trying to find a label for their establishments to cash in on the exoticness of it.

djm

Duh. Deej. I KNOW! I never set foot in a pub in the states until the last decade or so, when it became a sort of trend to call them pubs. I did set foot (and occasionally other body parts) into and on parts of bars, taverns, and saloons. Pubs bear no resemblance to an old-time saloon or bar, particularly in the potential for damage to the individual frequenting them. And most of the "pubs" here are pretty wimpy imitations of the real thing. You gotta read the message closer. The heat must be getting to you, up there.

[djm]

Probably. <shrug>

djm

[Walden]

Hotel, inn, public house, tavern, bar and grill... it gets kinda fuzzy, don't it!

[cowtime]

In the old days, if you fancied a brawl, cards, cheap whiskey, raucus laughter, cheap women, and the occasional cutting and shooting, you went to a saloon

or in some cases, a family reunion....

[Flyingcursor]

Deej,

Isn't the Proctology forum the place for expressing a bit of rancour now and then?

[djm]

Not to my understanding. That's for controversial subjects. Here, I try to maintain a poststructural level of dissent, lest this place turn into the Donny & Marie Show.

djm

[fearfaoin]

Not to my understanding. That's for controversial subjects. Here, I try to maintain a poststructural level of dissent, lest this place turn into the Donny & Marie Show.

Huh. That explains a lot, actually.

[Ronbo]

In the old days, if you fancied a brawl, cards, cheap whiskey, raucus laughter, cheap women, and the occasional cutting and shooting, you went to a saloon

or in some cases, a family reunion....

So true.

[talasiga]

A condition of using this board is, and always has been, willingness to be civil and to refrain from personal attacks. Neither of these is easy to define and regional differences are known to apply. However, like p0rn0graphy, we know it when we see it. (If, you know, hypothetically, we ever have occasion to see it.)
...........

Just to get back on topic for a mo.........

One useful guide is whether a negative comment relates to content as opposed to against the person (ad hominem). The former is usually acceptable. The latter not (although there are degrees of uncivilness from humourous, ironic and self depracatory, up to full blown abuse of the other).

Now look at this comment:-

...... stone is as ever pedantically verbose and in need of an editor. I might read his posts through if they were more succinct.
........

Read quickly it could give an impression that cocusflute is commenting on the content in stone's post. He is entitled to an opinion about content and entitled to express it civilly, even strongly. But then, when you read it carefully, you can see that cocusflute has not read stone's posts right through. He admits it.

So his comment could be seen as not addressing content but is an expression of his prejudice based on a partial reading of a post(or previous posts he read) which is being projected against stone. IMO, the comment does not comfortably address content but is an ad hominem attack in as much as it characterises stone's posts negatively on the basis of past experience WITHOUT testing that impression according to the current content of stone's post. Of course, the seriousness of this particular attack is a matter for stone and others to assess.

I think that this is an example of the fine line about such issues. I agree with Dale here about it being "not easy to define".

[Innocent Bystander]

When people talk about a "fine line" often they mean "a broad overlap".

[emmline]

When people talk about a "fine line" often they mean "a broad overlap".

Bravo. That is true. The fine line is crossed on a regular basis 'round here...it's when the overlap gets too broad...
(what marks the outer boundary of acceptable breadth?...a fine line)

[talasiga]

the breadth of civility
accepts rudeness
as its outer boundary

[jw wren]

... lest this place turn into the Donny & Marie Show.

djm

Wot, folk musicians ain't folksy?

[Sandy McLeod]

Until well into the 1960s it was against the law for a drinking establishment in California to call itself a saloon. A place in Laguna Beach, which was pretty saloonish for the time, had to close briefly because one of its walls was painted as western scene and the word saloon was included in the picture. The place re-opened when the nasty word was removed.

On the other hand, one of the great saloons in our area was then and still is called Mother's. Full of surfers, bikers, and other low life. It was wonderful, although in my declining years I haven't ventured in.

The golden years suck.

Sandy